The Lives of Rhett and Link - Biographic Master Post

People always have questions about the lives of Rhett and Link -- Where did they grow up? How old are they? What did they do before Internetainment? -- and people want to see the evidence of when Rhett and Link themselves stated these facts. That gave me the idea to undertake this project to collect video links of where our guys made statements about their personal histories.

Below, I'll be documenting important and most asked-about R&L life events with answers in evidential YouTube or other source links. It will be written somewhat in narrative biography format. Any Rhett and Link video or project is fair game for this info, but I'll be pulling mostly from the RhettandLinKasts, Good Morning Chia Lincoln, Good Mythical Morning/Good Mythical More, Ear Biscuits, and Rhett and Link's Book of Mythicality (denoted by "BOM" and the page number).

**Please note that I'm not exploring any of their friends' or family's social media profiles or otherwise "stalking" people to get any information; I'm just using what Rhett and Link themselves have told their audience.**

If you have a question about R&L's lives that you think should be answered in this post, please let me know in the comments below!

Around the age of 15 in 10th grade, or at the end of middle school going into high school, Rhett and Link made a blood oath with each other that they would stick together and create things/work on some unknown, ambitious project as adults. They wrote down this oath on two sheets of paper, which have not survived into the present day, and signed it with their blood that they cut from their palms. Link kept his copy of the blood oath until high school, at least the age of 16, when he lost the wallet that contained it. (Link has also provided a conflicting story wherein he kept the blood oath for 8 years before losing the wallet.) Rhett and Link are also blood brothers due to the fact they shook hands before signing the blood oath (but there is some uncertainty regarding whether they shook hands).

At the age of 16, Rhett received his driver's license and his first car, a 1981 Oldsmobile Omega that was handed down to him from his older brother. Several weeks later, Rhett purposefully drove the car beyond its limits and "killed" it to get a new car, a 1989 Dodge Dynasty. Link received a 1987 Nissan pickup truck at the age of 15, before he received his license the year after Rhett at the age of 16.

In 1994 (age 17 and 16), Rhett and Link acted in a modified version of the play Oedipus Rex (retroactively given the title Oedipus Rhett) with friends from school and recorded it on VHS; the VHS was later re-discovered by the parents of the girl who recorded it and was given over to Rhett and Link.

Both Rhett and Link suffer from tonsilloliths (tonsil stones) that started in high school; Link subsequently had his tonsils removed in college, but Rhett did not and continues to get tonsil stones.

They both underwent procedures for vasectomies in August 2017; in fact, they were each present in the room for the other's vasectomy. The whole process was filmed for an episode of Good Mythical Morning and referred to as the "brosectomy."

Rhett has stated that he wants to be cremated when he dies, with half his ashes spread in the Pacific Ocean and half spread in the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. Link is interested in a biodegradable burial.

They attended NC State at the same time as now-celebrity TV host Jill Wagner, whom they only knew as "Ms. Perfect" from seeing her around campus. They finally met and talked to her when she agreed to be a guest on The Mythical Show in 2013.

Link has stated that his most embarrassing moment happened in college after showering in the gym, as he was getting re-dressed. He bent over to put on his clothes and accidentally pressed his naked buttocks firmly into the back of a shirtless man sitting behind him. Their eyes met before Link was able to fully dress and flee. This remains his most embarrassing moment.

During college, Rhett spent a summerin Slovakia. He has stated he was there to teach English, specifically "working at an English teaching camp" (BOM 144). In an Ear Biscuits episode, Link said that Rhett was in Slovakia at the same time that Link's then-girlfriend Christy (now his wife) was spending the summer on the west coast; in the Book of Mythicality, Link says this was "the summer after our junior year of college" (BOM 142).

Link began datingChristy in his sophomore year of college; she was attending Meredith College, an all-girls school near NC State. They dated for about a year and a half before Link proposed. He had planned to propose about two weeks after Christy came back from her summer trip to the west coast so that he could buy a ring, but he was unable to wait and proposed the night that she returned. They married at the end of May2000. The wedding ring Link wears is the one that belonged to his grandfather, Clyde, who passed away in 1998.

Rhett met his now-wife Jessie when she was a senior in high school and he was a junior in college (BOM 138). Their first semi-dating experience at a Valentine's Day banquet did not go well, but by the next year (once Jessie was in college), they were dating seriously. Rhett and Jessie became engaged when Jessie was only 19 years old (BOM 144). They married on June 2, 2001.

Rhett has stated that his most embarrassing moment happened in Kentucky, prior to the birth of either Shepherd or Lincoln, at a gas station when he tried to force entry into a minivan that he thought was Link's rental; he believed Link was toying with him and locking him out of the car. It turned out to be the van of a mother with her children in the car, who were all terrified as Rhett demanded to be let in. This remains his most embarrassing moment to date.

Rhett and Link began considering working in comedic entertainment very shortly after graduating college and beginning their engineering jobs, after writing and performing an original comedic song at the wedding rehearsal dinner of their friend Greg. On the way home afterward, Jessie and Christy encouraged Rhett and Link to find other avenues for performing their music, which kick-started their pursuit of it.

After about 2 years working as engineers, Rhett and Link also joined the Campus Crusade for Christ's MidSouth Headquarters as "videographers/speakers/lounge singers" and expanded their skills and experience as entertainers. They worked for Campus Crusade for 3 years, which would have been approximately between 2003 and 2006/2007.

In October 2007, Rhett was caught on Google Street View on the front porch of his house in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. The image is no longer available in Google Maps; the section of the map where Rhett's former house is located can no longer be accessed in Street View at all.

Following Online Nation's cancellation and without full-time jobs, Rhett and Link began seeking sponsors for their online videos and got their first paid Internetainment work making "The Cornhole Song," a video sponsored by AJJCornhole. They also began the RhettandLinKast live podcast series in December 2007.

On January 3, 2011, Rhett and Link began the talk-show style series Good Morning Chia Lincoln. This became the precursor to their hugely successful Good Mythical Morning show, which would start the next year.

Both of them have lived in various towns around the Buies Creek area, including Apex. Rhett and Link both lived in Fuquay-Varina until they moved to California in April 2011.

Merle Haggard has been both Rhett and Link's favorite singer and idol since middle school, when Rhett discovered a compilation cassette in his father's collection that included "Okie from Muskogee." At the end of 2013, their wives bought them tickets to a Merle Haggard concert, along with an opportunity to meet Merle briefly just before the concert. The experience was not quite as expected, but they finally got to meet their hero. In December 2014, they got another chance to meet Merle, this time spending some "quality time" with him.

Along with their wives, they each submitted DNA samples to the service 23andMe in 2014 and had their genes analyzed, including both ancestral and health information. Link was found to be 99.9% European, (63.9% British and Irish), while Rhett is 98% European with 1.3% Sub-Saharan African DNA.

Rhett and Link were both again caught on Google Street View in 2015, this time in the Los Angeles area of California. It's unclear if they are aware of this, as the image was discovered by a Mythical Beast.

Rhett and Link partnered with the new subscription service YouTube Red in 2016 to create the series Rhett and Link's Buddy System, an eight-episode scripted comedy series featuring an original song with accompanying music video integrated into each episode. The first season's plot centered on Link's phone being stolen by their co-ex-girlfriend, Lesli, who wants to take over their YouTube channel for promotion of her as-seen-on-TV empire of products. The series emerged as one of the most successful endeavors on the YouTube Red platform at the time, reaching the #1 spot in digital series in March 2017, according to Parrot Analytics.

Buddy System was renewed for a second season and premiered on YouTube Red on November 29, 2017. The plot of the second season is based on exploring Rhett's and Link's existences in an alternate/parallel universe in which they didn't meet as first graders in North Carolina, but rather as adults in California. All 8 episodes were released at the same time; the runtimes are longer this season but still follow the format of including an original song and music video for each episode.

In August 2017, Mythical Entertainment was re-branded simply to Mythical, just prior to the start of GMM Season 12.

In early 2017, Rhett and Link announced The Book of Mythicality: A Field Guide to Curiosity, Creativity, andTomfoolery; it was officially released on October 10, 2017. Described as "a mythical blend of autobiography, trivia, and advice," the book includes never-before-told stories from Rhett's and Link's lives, photos from their past, humorous tips on specific topics, a chapter with insight written by their wives, perspectives and stories from Mythical Crew members, and some fan-made material.

The book's release was accompanied by a touring music and comedy show called the "Tour of Mythicality" spread over several months in 2017; it was Rhett and Link's first-ever live touring event. They expanded the Tour of Mythicality to Australia for 3 shows in July 2018, in addition to adding 3 shows in northeast North America in November 2018.

Link's hair began going naturally gray sometime in his 30s. In 2017, he revealed he had been coloring his gray hair for at least 5 years to cover it up but that he would stop doing so and let his gray hair show.

Also premiering in late 2017 (November 6, 2017), toward the end of Season 12, was the expansion ofGood Mythical Morning into four daily episodes that total approximately 22 minutes, made in partnership with YouTube and brand advertisers. It is unofficially referred to as "GMM 22." The expanded show was reported as being "more like late-night TV" and described by Rhett and Link as not only a way to expand their brand but also a means to illustrate the YouTube/digital realm as a legitimate space for content and advertisers. Starting in Season 13, the number of daily videos was reduced to 3. GMM returned to its classic format of 1 episode per day followed by Good Mythical More starting in Season 14.

Rhett revealed near the end of 2017 that he was invited to audition for the role of Taserface in the hit Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Despite the fact that Rhett and Link don't typically go on auditions or perform separately, Rhett went through with the audition and was received very well, ending up part of a candidate group narrowed down to just 3 people. Due to Rhett and Link's time constraints and their desire to still work as a duo, Rhett ultimately did not move forward any further with the audition process.

I took a trip through history using the ever-interesting Wayback Machine to pull some interesting tidbits out of Rhett and Link's bio/about/background pages from about 2005 - 2008. This helped me fill in a little extra information on their pre-YouTube career years.

I've also include the detail about Link's wedding ring from last week's Ear Biscuits episode.

@ Willem - - the original GMCL series was Jan-Feb 2011, just prior to the ROADTRIP and move out to California in March 2011 to begin working on the IFC channel's Rhett and Link: Commercial Kings (air dates Jun-Aug 2011).

After that, R&L returned on 09/24/11 to conducted the Great Kave Sale / Auction, at which time they divulged the Kave's address as: